Missed opportunities in Week 1 last season caught up with the Welsh Greyhounds. They don’t plan on making the same mistake twice when they open the season today at home against rival Kinder.

“Last year we made a ton of mistakes,” Welsh head coach Cody Gueringer said. “Now I say we made mistakes, but Kinder also capitalized on those mistakes.

“Also, some of those mistakes were forced by things they did or opportunities we didn’t take. When the ball is on the ground or when we get a chance to make a play, we have to make a play. We can’t just sit around and desire to make it. You have to make the play when the opportunity presents itself. Last year, (Kinder) capitalized on mistakes and opportunities and we didn’t. We have to be able to do that this year.”

Kinder won last year’s game 29-28 with a late fourth-quarter touchdown and 2-point conversion in a back-and-forth game and shut out the Greyhounds in the fourth quarter. Welsh gave up a key first down on fourth down in the go-ahead drive and fumbled the ball away with 29 seconds left.

“Our game against them is a ton of up-and-down like you are riding a roller coaster, so I told the kids all week you can’t ride that roller coaster,” Gueringer said. “We have to stay even-keeled the entire game, take advantage of what we are given when the opportunity presents itself and make plays when they have a chance to make them.”

Welsh turned up the intensity in practice this week after its jamboree game was canceled last week.

“Not playing last week I feel kind of hurt us a little bit,” Gueringer said. “I think we will be in shape and it won’t be a huge factor. We were unable to get half of a game in last week, so we made sure to think preparation this week and practice as hard and game-like as possible to get conditioning-wise where we need to be.”

Kinder’s methodical offense scored on all five of its drives last week in the Allen Parish Jamboree, but head coach Bret Fuselier said the Yellow Jackets need to clean things up on defense to prepare for the Greyhounds’ ground game led by quarterback Gabe Gillett.

“Offensively, we look to be executing pretty good right now,” Fuselier said. “We have five possessions in the jamboree and scored five touchdowns. Coach (Justin) Reed has been working on that all offseason because this offense is all about timing.

‘Now our offense seems to be doing pretty well. Of course, there are some things that we have to clean up, but now we have film to do that.

“Defensively, we have to do a better job of stopping the run than we did last week. That is going to be up to our defensive line to make that happen. No doubt, they are a run-first team.

“Everything revolves around their quarterback. The Gillet kid is very good with his legs and he looks improved over last year with his arm. They are more of a threat throwing the ball this year than last year. You have to be schooled up at every position.”

Fuselier said the Yellow Jackets have to avoid big pitfalls.

“We talked to the kids yesterday (that) in games like this a lot of times it comes down to who wants to win more than the other,” Fuselier said. “If you want to win bad enough, you are not going to turn the ball over, and you are not going to make those penalties to hurt your team.”